Monday, 21 March 2016

What happens exactly when a divided and dysfunctional
government goes head to head with a divided and dysfunctional opposition?

It’s not a question we’ve really ever had to confront in
modern British political history.

The last time a government was as discredited and shambolic
as the Tories are today, it was in the early 1990s. John Major was battling a
bunch of Eurosceptics he colourfully chose to describe as ‘bastards’ (one of
whom, incidentally, was a former army lieutenant and all-round
pain-in-the-rear-end called Iain Duncan Smith). The UK crashed out of the Exchange
Rate Mechanism and John Major pottered aimlessly for a few years initiating
groundbreaking policy initiatives such as the Cones Hotline.

By this time, Neil Kinnock was gone. He had been replaced by
the competent John Smith, who in turn was replaced by the irrepressible Tony
Blair. Major’s card had been marked. With every passing month Labour looked
more and more like a government in waiting.

Rewind another ten years and it was the Labour Party which
had been bitterly divided and riddled with in-fighting. The Bennite wing had tried to seize control
and had cultivated a power base in local government, best exemplified by
councils such as Lambeth, Brent and the GLC.
Trotskyist infiltration was rife and the Militant Tendency had effective
control of Liverpool City Council.

By comparison, the Tories looked frighteningly competent and
ruthless at this point. After the Falklands War and her landslide victory in
the 1983 election, Margaret Thatcher was in her prime. She had purged a number
of the Tory ‘wets’ and was pursuing her ideological agenda by taking on the
miners and, subsequently, the News International printers at Wapping.

There was one moment of Conservative weakness and infighting
– the Westland helicopter saga – which pitted Thatcher against her Europhile
nemesis Michael Heseltine. Neil Kinnock
was unable, however, to turn the government’s discomfort to Labour’s advantage.

In 2016, a fractured government is confronted by a fractious
opposition. The public looks at Cameron,
Osborne, IDS and the motley crew of Tories they elected just last year and
wonders what the hell is going on. Under
normal circumstances, the party’s division over the EU referendum and the
Budget would spell misery at the polls in May. But the public looks at Labour
and its leader and knows that it is no credible replacement for the
Conservatives. It doesn’t even look that worthy a recipient of a protest vote,
to be honest.

So where does this leave us? It’s like Novak Djokovic
playing left-handed with an eye patch against Andy Murray, while the dour
Scotsman ties his legs together with a sweat band.

The crazy thing is that we could easily see complete
political turmoil in the months ahead.

What if the UK votes to leave the European Union and Cameron
is utterly ruined? This could be followed
by months of further Tory in-fighting, as well as threats from Scotland to
withdraw from the UK in a second referendum. Tumultuous events, which could
easily create a scenario for another general election – even within the
confines of the rules for our fixed-term parliaments.

One thing is certain. The British people deserve so much
better than the choice on offer right now.
Incompetent right-wing ideologues on one side, tearing themselves apart
on Europe. Dogmatic old-style socialists
on the other, in complete denial about how out of touch they are with public
sentiment.

Matter meets anti-matter. And the net result will be a scary
democratic void.